What I’ve been wanting to do for a while is put a list together of all of the books that I want to recommend offhand to people who are new to homeschool and not sure how or where to get their bearings. I am hoping that this blog post will serve that purpose. It is not by any means comprehensive in the general sense or with regard to me personally. When we first began to consider homeschooling back in 2012, I went on a reading spree. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find many books in the library nearest to us, so essentially I put a hold on every book I could find at various branches quite a distance from us, and then I read them all. The list that follows, then draws mostly from memory (which is fallible of course), and more heavily from my goodreads list! (Please note this is also why the formatting sucks, but I don’t have the time to make it pretty, just to get it out there 🙂 )

In the beginning I was hesitant to update all of the books I was reading on there for fear of judgment from friends and family. God forbid I out myself as a homeschool before I was ready. Now though, the cat has been out of the bag for several years, and I’m so glad that I was able to save that list!

One thing I wanted to add, is that when I was first starting out, I was yearning for informative and up to date homeschool blogs. These people must be out there! I thought. Entering our 6th year I now see the reality that homeschoolers are probably just to busy out there doing things to blog. Many of us do, however, frequent instagram (the waldorf accounts are particularly aesthetically pleasing). So I would highly recommend signing up on there if you would like a more vivid depiction of the oft asked question of beginners of, “but what do you DO all day?” I asked that question several times in various facebook forums “back in the day.” Here is one post I wrote for a friend’s blog on that topic: http://www.themomstreetjournal.com/freedom-matters-day-life-homeschool-lawyer/

This list is nowhere NEAR exhaustive. There are tons and tons of other authors, books, websites, blogs, and resources, so if you do not see something here that speaks to you, do not be disheartened. I just hope this can help give some direction to those interested in learning more! Additionally, in doing this I realized how many particular curriculum/books/resources might be helpful for the actual day to day doing. I sprinkled in some websites in this post for that reason, although upon further reflection they’re pretty out of place, oh well!

Pam is AMAZING, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE her podcast. It always makes me think critically about things and inspires me to be a better homeschool parent. It was from one of her episodes that I learnt of The Gardener and The Carpenter book. I highly highly recommend it if you’re into that sort of thing. Check it out here: Living Joyfully With Unschooling

Pam also featured the author of this book, which I had forgotten I purchased!

The Waldorf Homeschool Handbook by Donna Ashton (I haven’t actually read this one yet, but I have it on my shelf.

Chirsopherus Homeschool, Waldorf Essentials, and Earth Schooling are the three most “legit” in terms of what is out there for homeschoolers that I have limited experience with. I have also seen praise for Lavender’s Blue and Wild Onions (may be just a blog). Oak Meadow is also Waldorf ish, but does not follow the typical Waldorf format of main lessons, and rather eschew’s the model for common core alignment (or so I have heard.

Feel free to leave me a comment if you enjoyed the list or if you have a question!

Recently, while we were eating out at a local restaurant, someone actually approached our table and said that our family had the best behaved small children they had ever seen. They had a teenage son. Can you imagine? 😀

We have been doing a lot lately. I know this is true because when I look back at all the photos that I have taken, I see, objectively all the places we have been, things we have done, people we have seen, etc. However, it’s difficult to have the mental space to keep running tally of what exactly we have been up to.

This year, we are part of a charter. For those unfamiliar with homeschooling — hey I had NO idea what this was even after we started homeschooling– a charter is registered with the state of California, and works with parents to procure the materials they want, while maintaining supervision over the students, including meetings every so many school days, etc. All of these charters have different nuances. So for our charter, I have to submit grades, for example. Arbitrary. I definitely dislike.

However, as I submitted my grades for my 5 and 7 year old, I decided to include a brief overview of what we have been up to– I sometimes have to send this in/tell the teacher as well. What follows are excerpts of verbatim what I told our “teacher”:

We took a fieldtrip to Cal Academy, and the girls were volunteers in an Ocean Acidification experiment.

As part of this, they blew into straws, which then blew into the water that contained purple cabbage water, to demonstrate the production of additional CO2 in the ocean. It was really amazing, actually. We did a lot of other cool stuff there too. This was one of the first times that my 5 year old was engaged in what was going on in the exhibits.

For example, she grabbed a nearby guide of the different fish, and started pointing out which ones were in front of her. This was just one thing that stands out in my memory. Big changes!

We’ve been working on reading The Little House in the Big Woods, and watching some episodes of Little House on the Prairie.

Little House is a big thing in the local homeschool culture, perhaps the culture at large, I couldn’t say. (In fact, one of our friends recently visited the Laura Ingalls museum/site in Missouri! Jealous!) But when this book was assigned as a part of the Mentoring in the Classics cohort, I knew this was our best chance at getting the girls interested. I also happened to have ordered them sun bonnets to replace their floppy previous sun hats.

“Kindness and neighborliness are not just for Sundays, Laura.” We happened to pick up Season 2, which opens with the incredibly annoying and unpleasant storekeeper/neighbors protesting over the girls having an unfair advantage at collecting leaves by going on a camping trip. All I could think in my head was “Whatever!” The girls, LOVED watching. They continued to point out how mean and sour that family was, and how nice the Ingalls family was. It was neat to watch. There are still some stressful and probably advanced story lines in the show, so we won’t watch it too often, but I could really see how it made the pages of Little House come more alive for the kids.

Little House in the Big Woods was actually the book for December, so we are a bit behind, and still working on it. Just don’t tell the librarian!

[7 year old] is continuing to work on her times tables, and both girls like playing the chocolate chip Math game that we bought at the thrift store.

“5 times 5 is 25, mom. My friend told me, it’s true!” These days even my 3 year old asks me what 2 plus 2 is and then 4 plus 4. It’s interesting and exciting to them. I remember what that was like. Multiplication drills were fun because they were isolated, short, and I knew them. They have their time and place, and I’m glad my kids like completing them when they feel like it. Chocolate Chip Math is essentially a Math facts drill game with the guise of chocolate chip cookies. (I can’t link to it because it literally is not linkable, like I said my 5 year old picked it out at the thrift store!) I had nothing to do with the selection, just like I don’t usually have anything to with them playing it– Inspire Not Require.

We’ve also been playing LOTS of Horseopoly— the kids are obsessed with counting money and learning about how transactions work. My 7 year old is also very interested in horses.

We recently got some 15 penpals for the girls across the country! I think only 1 is homeschooled! So we bought paper, pens, envelopes, stamps, and after the girls wrote their letters, we took a trip to the Post Office to mail them. We have a map of the U.S. noted with all the states of where the friends live.

I am realizing now that at least two of these sibling penpal sets are homeschooled, oh well! This has been really neat because my 5 year old dictates her letters to me, then signs them, and the envelopes herself. My 7 year old writes the letters herself (we need to work on handwriting, this provides the least arbitrary setting), and also writes her name and the intended person’s name. She could also write the addresses, but I worry that the USPS would not be able to read them– which brings me to the point of this post, eventhough this is only the middle of all the things I have to say here:

A stamp has to be in the upper right hand corner of the envelope, or it will not get mailed.

Just like the recipient’s address must be neatly printed in the middle of the envelope, and the return address goes in the upper left hand corner.

I’ve long accepted the unschool/TJEd notion that requiring things arbitrarily isn’t necessary because actually living life presents opportunities for children to see firsthand that sometimes things MUST be done a certain way. Reflecting on this point I realized the envelope situation. My 5 year old started putting stamps wherever she pleased, like stickers. I had to move the stamps or else who knows what bureaucratic situation would have her letters cast aside. In order for them to reach their destination, the stamp needs to go where it needs to go, because. That’s it. Life Lesson. Sometimes rules are arbitrary and we MUST follow them if we want to accomplish our goal.

We’ve also started listening to many different History audio CDs that we have downloaded through Freegal (a free library service). We have listened to Greek Myths and also Story of the World.

This is a BIG thing for us because my 5 year old has up until now HATED audio books. Like the second I put them on, she literally starts screaming, “NO!!!!!!! Turn this off, it’s STUPID! I HATE IT!!!!” I posted this in a TJEd #Fail post on facebook recently. Well, these days she is actually tolerating AND LISTENING TO Audio CDs!

The other day we were listening to SOTW (Story of the World), and it was talking about Ancient China, and how they were trying to make gold, but one day instead discovered gun powder. I looked in my rearview mirror to see my 5 year old with a suprised look on her face, and then she said (after the narrator) “It exploded!!” Oh! Also, my 7 year old has begun her Mandarin Rosetta Stone study, will have to blog about that experience later!

If you haven’t heard about Freegal, you MUST check it out. You can download FREE audio tracks. They have music, ebooks, and also these Greathall CDs narrated by the homeschool celeb Jim Weiss— whom, incidentally I also did not know was so well known. Guys, check it, he is a professional story teller!!!! Talk about a neat calling in life! And we love him, he’s great.

So back to Freegal, we downloaded CDs on Greek Mythology, the Old Testament, Jewish Holidays, and Galileo thus far. There is a daily download limit, so I have to go back and get a few more tracks at a time, that I then burn for car trips. I am LOVING it, and I think the kids are too!

I have so many other things I want to say, but I still need to go back and add pictures, and I have big plans for our Kidschool today, so that’s all for now! Check back later this week for more TJEd posts!

Whoops, I accidentally originally published this on my non-homeschool blog. My apologies for the redundancy 🙂

As a bibliophile, it’s only natural that I attempt to instill a love of books in my children. In order to accomplish this, in addition to having a good selection of books at their every day avail, we also make trips to the library as often as possible. Additionally, because our library trips are typically true to form of this blogger, and categorical of a mother of four, due to our library’s amazing terms of 50 items per library card, I attempt to check out as many materials as possible so that we will be set for a long period of time. I am also infatuated with the idea of strewing (see also), and so I check out some interesting books in the hopes that the kids will be interested.

So anyway, on our first chaotic trip to the library (our last happened to be little boy’s due date), our first time as a mom with four kids, the kids were surprisingly not gathering almost any books. Which was frustrating because we have to pay for parking to go to this awesome library, so I mean we need books on principle! lol. Anyway, we ended up getting much less than usual, but since the kids were near the media area, I decided to check out the CD selection, and I found Heigh Ho Mozart.

After we took everything home, it turns out the kids loved the HHM, and we ended up talking about the composer study from AO. I had fully intended to keep with it, but it was one of the things that went to the way side. Now, however, we fully intend to pick up again, and I am hoping that we will be able to get the kids to focus more, particularly on the art study.

I feel like homeschool is all about symbiosis and cycling through things that hold interest. Have you rediscovered something that you wanted to introduce your kids to?

I can’t even remember the last time I posted, but suffice it to say, I got a substantially time consuming part time job in legal blogging, which I LOVED, but it took all my free time and blogging juices.

While we have been homeschooling all the time, a lot has changed, including that we are expecting another little one next month! Additionally, as things have gone on, I have seen how my kids like to learn, and what works best with our routine.

Thus, while I still aspire to follow the Charlotte Mason method to a T, and we try to spend as much time as we can outdoors, this has become physically challenging, as my youngest is still in the runaway crazy phase, and let’s face it I am big and slow, lol! Also, since my oldest is only now 6, which CM recommends for the starting age, the attempt to do more textbook/living book based has been challenging because while she can read, and well for her age, she certainly cannot read her lessons.

Thus, we do a blended approach of short but sweet lessons that my oldest can do for herself. I used to disdain at the thought of worksheets, but she actually enjoys them immensely, and takes them to her desk and gets to work. Hallelujah!

We also continue to take regular trips to the library for books to read together, my two littles are wonderful at sitting and listening together.

And most importantly, we get out and do things, and see people, and engage in hands on learning.

Additionally, we have started to integrate Latin, and will be focusing more on service in the coming year– in particular childhood hunger. Following the cut to food stamps funding and benefits, I have read far too many articles about families struggling just to eat, and I realized what better way to teach my children than to engage them in service.

Also, my younger daughter has started doing school work more regularly. She certainly has the capacity, and needs the direction. Right now we are focusing on fun things like cutting and pasting, tracing letters, and her favorite “computer preschool” lessons from Easy Peasy (allinonehomeschool.com)– she particularly likes the starfall letter lessons 🙂

I think that about sums it up. Things are still very see what works and go with it, and I am constantly trying to integrate interesting projects and fieldtrips, and we have joined several different homeschool groups, with a regular circle of friends. We love meeting new people and going on new adventures, and I look forward to our future!

If you’re like me, a person who struggled with math at one pout or another, you may worry about being able to teach your kid math.

Despite my having to go to tutoring hours every.single.day to earn a B+ in Statistics in college, I’m beginning to see that there are tons of Math homeschool resources out there. We plan on using either Math u See or Singapore Math when the kids are older, but in the meantime we have a great K Math workbook, and some man blocks:

So I had to help her make sure she had the right number of blocks on each side of the plus sign, and without my help she missed 3/16, but for just turning 5 I am please. And the best part is that se thinks it’s fun! So yay for math!

Last night I spent some time going over the curriculum and methodology of a wonderful site I stumbled upon a few months ago: Ambleside Online. I had actually talked to another CM mom I know, and it turns out she used it for her older kids.

It’s basically a comprehensive book list and attack plan for every year. I have been waffling about which curriculum I want to et for each subject v. A comprehensive plan v. Just getting various books at the library, and this is essentially the answer to my prayers.

Each year has a book and supply list for the 36 week schedule that is further divided into three terms. Each term covers a different classical music composer and artist, which are studied in accordance with CM principles. The books are high quality, challenging, classical literature. Included in every level of study are readings by Plutarch, Shakespeare, and Bible study. Since we are Jewish, I plan to substitute the weekly Torah portion for the weekly bible study– agnostics could easily substitute something else, but the premise running throughout the plan is character development and growing into a righteous person.

The plan also includes study of poetry, folk songs, hymns, foreign language, and Math (which requires a separate program).

Additionally, the main hallmarks in a CM education, aside from exposure to quality books and materials, is learning about nature through experiencing it, so book lists include field guides for trees, plants, and animals, and each term has it’s own nature study. Students maintain their own individual nature journals with information about what they see, when, what the other conditions are, and drawings, lea or flower presses, etc.

Perhaps most central to the CM type of education are the hallmarks of copy work, dictation, and narration. These become more central and difficult as the child ages, but training a child how to “see” and observe things wholly begins at the beginning, so to speak. Parents additionally ask their children to repeat back as much of a story as they can remember to practice these skills.

There is also an emphasis on practical life, teaching the child life skills, and development of meaningful handicrafts that the child spends lots of time on–rather than quick arts and crafts type projects that will eventually be thrown away. Examples of this include things like sewing or needlepoint. There is a list of recommended books for this as well.

There is obviously more to that than this brief overview, but I think it gives you a pretty good idea of the main points. If you are considering a CM education for your child, I highly recommend checking it out! Ambleside Online

Every time we get a haul of books from the library, they are usually hit or miss. And by that I mean there is usually one or two, sometimes three, books that both capture the kids’ attention, and have an interesting storyline. E.g. He fairy series of books just drives me nuts, if I never had to read another one aloud, it would be too soon. I try to let big girl get them every once in a whole because I figure he important thing is that she’s interested in reading and eager to listen.

That being said, here is the hit list from our most recent trip;

John Muir, America’s First Environmentalist by Kathryn Lasky–loved this one. The illustrations are beautiful, and it covers the course of his life, detailing his enthrallment with nature and general intellectual curiosity. A lot of the book reminds me of Charlotte Mason. Plus I personally learned new things, like the fact that Muir was an inventor (big girl was both intrigued and concerned about his bed that dumped he occupier when the clock turned a certain hour, I.e. an early alarm clock), that he was the driving force behind Yosemite and the national park system, and that he founded the Sierra club. These are probably widely known facts, but I always like to learn new things too.

This is the Sunflower, by Lola M. Schaefer– his was a cute and short little story with beautiful illustrations of sunflowers. It generally describes the life cycle of a sunflower and lays the foundation for some basic life cycle concepts. Great for the 2-3 year old audience IMO.

Me and my dad, by Allison Ritchie– this is a super cute story about a bear cub and his dad and their adventures. It has great woodland illustrations and a sweet storyline. Plus I always like to pick up the books involving daddies since it seems to be a lesser developed genre when compared with mommies or grandmas, for example.

Goodnight, goodnight, construction site, by Sherry Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld–by far the biggest hit with all the kids. A more traditional goodnight story, this book gives some detailed information about the different functions of various construction vehicles, and makes it seem like it’s cool to go to sleep and rest after hard work–always a plus! I also like to pick up books that might not generally be targeted towards girls, read not pink or about princesses/fairies, and the girls really took to this story. I’ll strongly consider buying this one.

Sheep on a ship, by Nancy Shaw– I think this one might be a reader, since it was one of many copies among similar looking books. Nonetheless, the prose was interesting to read with tongue twisting language. It details the trip of some ambitious sheep over some rough seas. I will definitely be looking into checking out more books in this series. Another one that has been read several times.

Thomas Paine by Rourke publishing– this was definitely one of the more advanced books. Presented in a less detailed encyclopedic format, it presents more advanced concepts such as the colonies, independence, and the French Revolution. It wasn’t difficult to explain to my almost five year old though, and she really enjoys learning about this period in history. It was also easy to extend our talk into geography and other related concepts, such as our copy of the Declaration of Independence.

“They cram to pass, and not to know, they do pass, and they don’t know.” California Bar Exam anyone?

I am about half way through A Home Education, and I thought I’d share some of the more salient points that I’ve recently come across.

“You want a child to remember? Then secure his whole attention, the fixed gaze of his mind, as it were, upon the fact to be remembered; then he will have it: by a sort of photographic (!) process, that fact or idea is ‘taken’ by his brain, and when he is an old man, perhaps, the memory of it will flash across him.”

“you must not only fix his attention upon each new lesson, but each must be so linked into the last that it is impossible for him to recall one without the other following in its train.”

The mother “must ask herself seriously,
Why must the children learn at all?
What should they learn?
How should they learn it?”

Wonderful wonderful recap of her main ideas:

-children’s lessons should provide mental material for their growth
– should exercise the several powers of their minds
– should furnish them with fruitful ideas, and
– should afford them knowledge, really valuable for its own sake, accurate and interesting, of the kind that the child may recall as a man with profit and pleasure

1. Knowledge most valuable to the child is that which he gets with his own eyes and ears and fingers (under direction) in the open air.
2. That the claims of the schoolroom should not be allowed to encroach on the child’s right to long hours daily for exercise and investigation.
3. That the child should be taken daily, if possible, to scenes–moor or meadow, park, common, or shore–where he may find new things to examine, and so add to his store of real knowledge. That the child’s observation should be directed to flower or boulder, bird or tree; that in fact, he should be employed in gathering the common information which is the basis of scientific knowledge.
4. That play, vigorous healthful play, is, in turn, fully as important as lessons, and regards both bodily health and brain-power.
5. That the child, though under supervision, should be left much to himself–both that he may work in his own way on the ideas that he receives, and also that he may be the more open to natural influences.
6. That the happiness of the child is the condition of his progress; that his lessons should be joyful, and that occasions of friction in the schoolroom are greatly to be deprecated.

Here’s somewhat of a photo dump of things we’ve been up to “outdoors” lately. We even saw rock formations made from the ocean floor, and talked about what coyotes might like to eat, based on one of our outings.

Also, one of the most exciting aspects to me, is that we picked up some tree and plant guides, so I can guide the girls to start identifying plants. Hopefully more will come of that soon, and we can get a copy of our own to bring out “into the field.”

The next part of the books discusses academics–what should be taught and how. While I have touched on this a bit in prior posts, I am excited to get the information directly from the source. I will keep you all posted!

If you can’t wait, here’s a great wiki entry about her and her teaching philosophy.

One of the discussions I find myself returning to, whether in terms of a discussion with other parents, or when I’m reflecting on why I think homeschooling is right for us, is: what’s the point? More specifically, what are the particular goals I have in mind for my children.

While I aspire to order shiny new curriculum, have them speak and read fluent Latin, and memorize the Constitution (lawyers’ children much?), I’ve come to realize that the most important things I want for them, in no particular order, are to:

Be intellectually curious.

Develop capability to conduct research to find information, and relatedly to know where to look or who to ask for help.

Love learning.

Follow their interests.

Develop strong study skills and habits, and organization skills.

Work independently.

Focus when necessary, for increasingly extended periods of time.

Experience real life and all the lessons it has to offer.

Stop and smell the roses, literally and figuratively.

Have fun!

Striving to develop these 10 goals with my children, which could probably be narrowed to a shorter list of interconnected skills/traits, are far more important to me than them being able to recite all 50 state capitals–although I’d like them to learn those too 🙂